Civil Liberties

Arizona Senate Approves Lying to Women to Prevent Abortions

The Arizona state senate has approved a bill that allows doctors to lie to women about prenatal problems if it is believed that such information would increase the likelihood that the patients would have abortions.

The Raw Story reports that the bill, introduced by Republican Sen. Nancy Barto, is intended to protect doctors from “wrongful birth” lawsuits. Parents whose children are born with disabilities or deformities sometimes sue their doctors for failing to inform them of those conditions, believing that the doctors withheld that critical information.

The measure allows doctors to withhold information about the health of a fetus if that information would make the patient more likely to abort the child.

“When I first heard of this issue, I couldn’t believe that these lawsuits are actually happening,” Barto told KTAR. “That some couples, after they give birth to their child that has a disability, would claim that the child should not have been born, and would sue to get damages.”

“The lawsuits that are being brought imply that the physician is somehow at fault if the child is born with a disability,” she added.

Barto says that doctors can still be held accountable if there is evidence of wrongdoing.

“If a doctor intentionally or knowlingly withholds information then a lawsuit could be appropriate,” she told KTAR.

Apparently lying to women in order to prevent abortions doesn’t fall under the category of “wrongdoing.”